


tell no one

by mirkwood131



Series: EXO Central [41]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Byun Baekhyun-centric, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mild Smut, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-03 10:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16324865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirkwood131/pseuds/mirkwood131
Summary: Two days after the proposal, Baekhyun found a letter at his doorstep, written in messy handwriting: "DON'T MARRY HIM!"





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from penguin random house, prompter Rainette Lau  
> I have a thing for strange Baekhyun characters, so this might just be one of them. For this one, I'm rather excited to write it as most of the plot is sketched out in my mind. It should be interesting.  
> also, this is inspired by 'gone girl' by gillian flynn, as i am reading it right now, the second time, but in english. i really enjoy her writing style and usually, as i read something, i tend to emulate in a way or another that particular style.  
> hope you'll enjoy:)

I open the door and look at the way my fingers wiggle in the bright blue slippers. It makes me laugh-a lot of things do these days. Then I see the envelope; stark white with a big brown smudge on its side. I pick it up, turn it around-no more stains, thank God-and put it in the pocket of my hoodie.

It smells terribly of honeysuckle. I hate it. Makes me so nauseous that I can puke my entire stomach through my mouth. This is some kind of wild species-or whatever you call it- which you might find on some hill between some red leafed trees. But here are no hills. Just perfectly trimmed bushes and perfectly cut grass and decorative trees and big houses with small, colorful fences. Everything is perfect here. So perfect that dogs have golden pretzels hanging from their tails and ambrosia comes out instead of tap water.

That's how our house is too: perfect.

My life as well, from the moment I shit at 9 AM to when I snore when I fall asleep. Life here is…simply perfect.

The door creaks. I know it is Martha, the housekeeper, as we are the only ones home right now. Somehow, I feel proud of myself that I snuck the envelope before she had time to pick it up and put it wherever she puts them. Exactly like a little kid who managed to hide something from his mommy. I smile to myself.

Since a very young age- so young that I cannot even remember it- I loved taking anything that didn’t seem to have an apparent owner. I called all of my findings: my little secret treasure. Hidden in a box underneath the bed, I felt proud that nobody could find my possessions. I’ve thrown them away when I started high-school. But by then, I was onto bigger things.

"Mister Baekhyun."

Her voice is surprisingly soft and gentle, despite her massive figure that reminds me of a sumo wrestler; her eyes are always wet and sad, like an old bulldog's that patiently waits its end. But Martha is probably in her forties, still having some 30 years to live until maybe she'd die from a stroke or dementia. If I were her, I’d choose a stroke.

"You'll get sick if you keep standing outside."

"Alright, alright."

I keep touching the envelope, the sharp corners, until one of my fingers starts pounding. Surely, I’ve cut it. Right next to honey suckle, there’s paper cuts. I hate them too. This entire morning was started on the wrong foot, which means that the entire day will go to hell. There’s no question mark in this equation which is actually an axiom.

I step inside not before I look around one more time. Everything is perfect. My life is perfect, I try to remind myself. It has become a mantra; repeat it so much that you start to believe any bullshit.

"Should I make breakfast?" Martha asks.

"Yes."

We're both standing in the middle of the circular hallway, like two players in a staring contest. The first one to blink loses. But what? Two steps on the staircase and she follows me. Another one. We're both gripping the bronze railing and the marble reflects the artificial lightning right into my eyes. I blink. I lose.

"I'm going to my room."

"Yes, mister Baekhyun."

"You...should go make breakfast."

Martha bobs her big head of hers, from one side to the other, and I'm scared that it might slide of her neck, down onto her chest and fall straight at my feet; then roll down on the stairs, plop-plop-plop, just like one big watermelon. But Martha turns around.

I breathe out. The envelope is still in my pocket, nudging me in the fingers to rip it open and read the contents. So I run up, up, up-it's a very long way to our bedroom-and then I'm on the first floor. It’s a 3 story building, made by some megalomaniac architect who probably imagined a Victorian family with 13 kids would be living in here. It’s only 3 people.

I've realized that I keep using 'us' instead of 'me'. This is something that happened gradually until it became part of my vocabulary. But it is a thing that everyone does after a certain point, after they have reached that little sweet spot of comfort and laziness.

I close the door and I think about locking it too. My fingers tremble while I tore the paper open; the letter flies from my hands, right underneath the desk. I grab it and stare at how white it is, how empty, except for three words:

"DON'T MARRY HIM!"

I drop it again. There's footsteps on the hallway, a knock at the door; I look around and pick it again, crumple it and throw it in the garbage.

"Mister Park arrived early." Martha says.

She keeps looking at me with her bulldog eyes until I glance down. Sometimes, I think that she knows more than she lets it slide. Reminds me of a medieval movie where servants would eavesdrop at doors, spreading rumors and words everywhere. That’s how I picture Martha too.

"Fantastic."

I've always fake smiled; truly smiling as a need coming from my own being hasn't been something I've ever done. So faking it represents the closest thing to it. It almost feels like the real deal, when my forehead scrunches and my eyes crinkle and my cheeks hurt. A perfect little smile showing perfect little teeth.

Mister Park, Chanyeol, is my fiancée.

We met in my second year of college-right at the end of it, when I was ready to return to a dusty grey suburb of an even dustier town that I used to call ‘home’.  Our meeting was nothing to be remembered, quite bland, like a soup without salt that you still eat because you are hungry. He was the most exquisite person I have met until that point. The first man that shared my inner feelings so well that I was almost scared. After 2 days, we were dating.

2 days ago, he proposed to me. Right at the dining table, with Martha standing somewhere in the kitchen, listening to our talk.

"Would you marry me?"

He asked me that and I stopped from chewing and slicing through my tofu. The food remained stuck in my throat as he kept looking at me, smiling one of his perfect smiles that he has for an interview.

"Yes."

When I think about my fiancée, the first thing that comes to my mind is the shape of his lips. I don’t know why. Maybe because that was where my eyes first stopped on his face- not his nose or eyes or God knows what. His lips. Sometimes it is rather amusing how symmetrical they are. A perfectly puckered circle that rises from the plane of his olive skin into a soft mass of pink tissue. They glisten when he licks them; he does that often, and then slaps lip balm on, so when I kiss him it's all oily and tasting of vanilla.

I also think about his brain a lot. But I do that for most people I meet or barely see passing on the street. When I was little, I thought my mother could read my thoughts; so in bed, sleeping next to her, I would try to think about nothing.  

I also like to fantasize about what Martha is ruminating on while she washes the dishes or asks me to go inside; maybe it's about her youth, how she should have married that boy or it's simply just about the dust and my forthcoming cold.

But Chanyeol's brain is far more interesting. Sometimes I imagine that the only thing I need to do is take a screwdriver and the insides of his skull would be right before my eyes. But then, how I would I be able to know what he thinks about? What he considers of me when I’m not next to him, what are his thoughts when he goes to sleep, inches away from my body?

He's standing in the kitchen, staring right in front of the table. I hate that table.

"'Morning."

Martha is looking at us but doesn't leave. So I walk up to him, snake my arms around his shoulders, neck and kiss him. His mouth is soft this time, not oily from the balm; my tongue runs across his bottom lip, then teeth, feel their perfect shape underneath before I am welcomed by his own. It's warm and I sigh when he pulls me closer, placing both hands on my back.

I know what he wants to do. Pull at my hair and knead my ass, but he can't, because Martha is watching. Maybe she has a voyeuristic fetish, living her own life through ours; imagining that she is me this time. The thought makes me shiver.

Chanyeol stops. I pout-he likes it when I do it, turns him on. But we are not alone and he is not that brave. I am neither.

"'Morning!" he says and brushes his fingers through my hair.

Chanyeol was the one insisting to move to a bigger house. ‘After all, I can afford it’ is what he said one night after we had sex. I only nodded in response. There was no point in me arguing about it when in fact I was just as eager to trade my small apartment that barely had a kitchen with a mansion in a residential area.

So we moved, and with him came Martha and with me just 2 boxes of random clothes and books and DVD's that turned out to be all smashed in transit.

That was all I had, which in the end seemed quite pathetic as I could fit all my life belongings in a backpack.

But it didn't matter.

"Let's eat." Chanyeol says, pulling a chair from underneath the table.                            

"Okay."

There's only the clinking of the cutlery for a while which always gives me room to think. I look at him from time to time, and smile to myself, thinking how lucky I am. How lucky to have such a perfect life.

He hasn't told me from the first moment he is rich; it happened approximatively after one year, right at Christmas, when he gifted me a Rolex and I dropped the box on the carpet and probably screamed. That night, I couldn't sleep.

All sorts of thoughts were whirling through my brain while he was sleeping next to me, in the darkness of the room. I could feel his chest rising and falling, pressing into my back. He smelled how he usually did, faintly of musk and tree bark, but as I was breathing in, the scent seemed different. Knowing that he was wealthy, all of my perceptions had changed.

But what was he thinking about?! It kept bugging me, like a mosquito flying around my head.

This was all happening in my apartment, long before we moved together in this house. Funny how this is the first time we live together, isn’t it?

Our habits haven't synced just yet. He likes to wake up at 6 straight, do some pointless mind games on his phone before Martha makes him breakfast while I still sleep and sleep until the sun is too hot on my face. I wake whenever I want.

I'm unemployed. Have been for the past 6 months, when I've realized what a poor excuse of a writer I have been.

That was my childhood dream. Write novels that would sell into thousands and then millions of copies. I could picture myself as the new literary breakthrough, better than Hemingway himself.

But the first book I've published, 120 pages of utter bullshit and cheap romance was sold in 102 copies. Then, it went on sale for 2$ and 50 cents and there came another 400, from all across the country. There was no literary review, no anything.

The publishing house-a room big as a bathroom with a bored man working there-and my editor needed to be paid. I made no profit.

That was 1 year ago and until this day, I haven't told Chanyeol. My story is that I've been working since college for a publishing house-the one that published my book too-and last year it closed. That's not a lie. It truly closed as no decent or even mediocre writer would choose it. Except for me.

So my writing career ended as quickly as it started.

As every aspiring anything-painter, actor, engineer, economist, you name it-I thought my prose was brilliant. In the past, I have written well over 200 short stories, posted wherever I could. The reviews were great, blinding even. I knew I had what it takes to make the new bestseller. It took me one year to write that bullshit. Doing it whenever Chanyeol wasn't home at first, but then I realized, he didn't question why I was hunched over my laptop or phone, with a wrinkled forehead and sweat over my temples.

It all ended in the trash; published under an alias, Mirk Clintwood, there was no fear of anyone discovering my shame somewhere in a bin or a local library that somehow received my 'novel'.

Now, I was looking for a job. A new one.

"Have you found anything you like?" Chanyeol asks me at the table, smiling with his perfect lips.

"Not really...I'm not sure...what I'm good at."

That's not a lie either. After 20 years of thinking I was a writer, a good one, to find out the contrary was quite a deception. That is bluntly said and probably wrongly worded. I didn’t feel sorrow or sadness. But nothing. An endless array of nothingness that went on and on until this point.

"Don't be so harsh on yourself. I can always give a hand." he smiles.

I know what ‘give a hand’ means to him. It means asking one of his rich friends to ask another rich one to find me a job. Anyone would accept that. But I am still not over my failed novel. My failed pointless career.

"I know. But I need to do it on my own."

"I know."

How hard it must be for someone like him to understand that some people simply can't fit in a decent job, working decent hours for someone smarter and richer than them. I want to be great. Extraordinary.

Truthfully, I'm below mediocrity.

Chanyeol is the CEO of a company.

Lying in bed, next to him, with the TV still on, I glance at his face and I'm envious. Then, this whole thought process and wires and spirals of indecent thinking makes me feel damp on the inside, like a dirty rag that will never get dry. So I take the blow drier and put it on the highest heat to try and get my insides back to normal.

In the middle of all of this, I remember the white envelope. Just like that. I glance at the bin; it must be still in there, crumpled, right as I left it.

"You good?" Chanyeol asks me, brushes his fingers through my fringe and smiles.

It's warm, like any of the smiles he has offered me.

I lean down and kiss him-how much I like kissing him. Sometimes it seems like it's the best thing and the rest that follows doesn't even matter, pales in comparison.

But the envelope is still there, with its three big words slapped in the middle of it: "DON'T MARRY HIM!"

Why shouldn't I? I have every reason to. One could even say that I'm a leech, an opportunist that has no career prospects ahead of him. That's true, but you see, for one year I didn't know he was rich. I didn't care. Why would I now? And why would a complete stranger send such a letter anyways?

So I continue kissing him, let my hands move across his chest, feeling his muscles contract underneath my touch. I straddle his lap and tickle his sides, right where I know he's sensitive.

The first thing he told when me met was that if I were to ever see him angry, I should just tickle him. I laughed and found it odd, so odd to say that to someone you’d just met. I wanted to see him more. Chanyeol appeared to be my kind of person.

He laughs now and pushes me on the bed while with one leg he pins me down, under his weight. We both laugh. Chanyeol bites my ear lobe, hard, and I kick him wherever I find any skin. He bites me again, harder.

"Do you want to cut it off?"

He laughs.

Game over.

Looking at him, I purse my lips, pretending to kiss the air until my mouth reaches his chin. I do this all over his face as he giggles from time to time until I stop over his lips.

Sex is great with him. He's a romantic-I could tell that from the first time, when he cupped my face and looked right into my eyes and asked if he had been hurting me.

I am not.

My dear mom has always said that I am like an iceberg, bound to have everyone crash on me and break. She was also a romantic, so much so that she lived for 30 years with the same asshole that considered a sign of affection beating her with a belt.

Probably, I get the coldness from him. I've never told Chanyeol about any of that. The consensus is that my father has dementia and my mom died from a stroke. My younger brother has lost touch with me or me with him so I don't have to worry about any of that.

I'm a decent human being even though it doesn't seem like that, with all my lies or things I hide from my fiancé.

And the white envelope seems like another thing that I have turned into a secret. But what can I tell him?! He would laugh straight into my face-not ill intentioned- but in that way an adult with too many responsibilities would with a child.

So I don't. We just have sex and then stay in bed, me facing his chest, hugging his torso and thinking about who and why could have sent me that.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've reached that point where i'm not entirely sure what i want to do with this. where i want to bring all this plot. hopefully, as i write it, all will come together. hopefully.  
> enjoy:)

The wedding is in 3 months. Nothing fancy. Only 30 guests, excluding my parents as they won’t talk to an abnormal son-or that’s what I told Chanyeol. It sounds good, almost too good. But everything is perfect here. Even my morning shit. 30 guests, the ceremony held on the small field in the back of our own house, right at the edge of the forest that spreads around the area. I like the idea, it was Chanyeol’s in the end, said during breakfast one day.

I open the front door.

This time, Martha is in the service bathroom, doing our laundry; every Thursday, at exactly the same time. 10 sharp, 3 loadings into that super performant washing machine that Chanyeol bought at a tech show. Who would have thought?! It is soundless, so it wouldn't wake up the children. That was the line written on the paper stuck to it.

I laugh again, this time at the image inside my head. Me, giving birth to twins, through a magically manufactured vagina and uterus.

On the first step, there's another white envelope. I look around. The street is empty, like always.

Perfect little streets with perfect little nothings on them. I pick it up, turn it around, and put it in my pocket. Today it doesn't smell of honeysuckle but someone surely woke up early to plant another little gift for a soon to be groom. Or bride.

I haven't decided. Just yet.

There's fog all over the place-strange for 10 in the morning-but I don't mind. Makes the perfect little area less perfect. Fog that clings to your bones, sticky like molasses, but damp. It drips from the eaves on my feet.

I go to the service bathroom, walking on my tiptoes and stop behind Martha.

She throws the clothes from the basket into the super performant washing machine.

"Have you seen anyone around the house earlier?"

She yelps, dropping a shirt on the floor. It is Chanyeol's. I don't own any, just out of principle. Only people with decent jobs and decent careers own them, or ones that want to flaunt their good taste into everybody’s face.

"Mister Baekhyun."

She turns around, one hand over her left breast-one huge, watermelon shaped breast- looking at me with her sad, bulldog eyes.

"Why do you ask?"

I shrug. What a woman! She cannot even answer one simple question.

"So. Did you see someone? Anyone?"

Her arm drops and she quickly picks the fallen shirt, following the rest inside the black hole that is staring at me. One time, I read that someone fucked on or with a washing machine. I am not sure.

"I suppose not." Martha says.

"Fine."

That's how my search ends, not even beginning. A failure. Whether or not she knows, I bet she wouldn't tell me, maybe only to Chanyeol. I'm still the intruder in the house, the guest, the person who shouldn't know or do much. So I get back to our bedroom and this time, lock the door.

The envelope seems heavier. My fingers don't want to cooperate-they've been trembling for a while-and tear the paper everywhere without opening it.

I grab the scissors. Eureka! This time, there's more words. Many more.

_"DON'T MARRY HIM! If you want a long, happy life without lies and cheating, DON'T MARRY HIM!" -from a well-meaning person._

I crinkle it and throw it in the trash bin. The same damn message, with a few more filler words. Same handwriting. Even the paper smells the same, damp and moldy.

A knock.

It's Martha, it has to be her, sneaking behind closed doors, watching my every move with her wet eyes, following even my heart beats. The paper stares at me, white and sharp. I open the door.

"What?!"

"I made breakfast."

"Did I ask you to make breakfast?"

She looks at me and I look at her and I wonder how much she knows of this little stupid game.

"Mister Baekhyun..."

"I'm going for a walk."

Actually, I don't want to, but as she probably stares at me running down the stairs, I cannot stop and go to the kitchen and eat. My stomach grumbles. The street is still covered in fog. Besides me, there's no one.

Sometimes I wonder where are those people? Are they hiding behind their white blinds, peaking between them at the perfect little empty streets? I haven't seen one. Cars, from time to time, but none stops in front of any house. They all continue downhill, where they get lost among many more houses and trees, until there’s only them left. It's like they are running away from here.

I have no jacket on me. Only my t-shirt, growing heavier and heavier on my shoulders from the dampness of the air.

When we first moved here, I was in awe. In awe is not enough. Moving from a small apartment scattered with trash and empty water bottles and most of my clothes making the flooring, it was a big change. When Chanyeol would come over, everything would be tossed in the kitchen. The consensus was that I had no kitchen. It was locked whenever he was over, the key in my nightstand, underneath a notebook.

I think I see a dog in the fog, but it's only a hydrant, bright red.

It's cold.

The letter is still in the bin, in our bedroom with the door wide open. Martha might pick it up, unfold it, read it and then show it to Chanyeol.

I turn around. My lungs burn as I run-like a smoker with them made out of yellow phlegm- but I don't stop until I get inside the house, up in the bedroom and bend down near the trash.

The white envelope is staring back at me.

I sigh.

Maybe I should throw it away, somewhere where neither Martha nor Chanyeol can find it. But it's too much. It already seems like a defeat, an acknowledgement that I should believe whatever bullshit is written on them. I don't.

Martha can read it if that's what she wants.

The rest of the day passes slowly but from time to time I find myself thinking about the letter and checking the bin for it. Still there. Crumpled, smelling like the fog.

Martha looks at me weirdly, talks less like she is scared. I'm getting paranoid from something so stupid.

Chanyeol comes at 6 and smiles at me. The first one of the day.

"Had some fun?" he asks.

"Sure. A lot."

I kiss him on the lips, hard, and then look at his face.

"You good?"

I try to imagine why I shouldn't marry him. Why?

"I'm just tired."

A lie.

His lips purse and with his hands, he grabs me by the middle, pulls me closer to his chest until my head rests on it. His heart is beating, not too slow or fast. My breathing falls in sync with it and I close my eyes.

"What about inviting some friends over tomorrow?" he asks.

"Sure..."

I know all his friends. All the people that he considers "friends", because, in the end there's 2 categories for him, but about the second he rarely talks about, or only when he's mad.

The first one consists of 5, all just as rich as him, not one like me. Straight and wearing deep blue suits and brown shoes with them. Laughing at jokes that I don't find funny.

"How many economists does it take to change a light bulb? 7 plus/minus ten." a dude dressed exactly like that said one time, and everyone around me began laughing so I had to do it too.

That was the worst night. Chanyeol invited me to a casual party somewhere downtown, with some of his friends. We've been dating for 3 weeks and I was still astonished.

Back then, I didn't know he was the boss of all those people and none of those people told me. I was there as the outsider friend.

He didn't hold my hand, just let me mingle among the crowd, talking to one or another.

Back then, I was still a writer. My side job was as a supermarket salesperson. I hated every moment of it.

At one point, Chanyeol came to me as I was trapped between a financial assistant and an accountant, both arguing about some economic mishap.

"Let's get out of here." he whispered into my ear and I smiled.

That night was warm and dusty and we held hands and walked home on foot. The next morning I had blisters but I woke up next to him.

When I open the bedroom door, I remember the letter.

"Babe..."

"Yeah?" he asks, kissing my neck.

"Have you found an envelope outside this morning?"

"No...I don't know." he says.

I have the impression he looks at the trash bin. Why didn't I throw it somewhere else?!

"Why?"

I shrug.

“Are you expecting a parcel?”

“No…just a thought. I saw that some neighbors were receiving some letters and I was curious. That’s all.”

“I know nothing about it.” he says, continues to kiss me on the neck as he closes the door with his foot. “I thought about inviting a couple more people. To the wedding.”

“Huh…”

This is one of the bad ideas. I know less than 30 people, out of each I barely speak with 15 from time to time. Only 3 are considered my friends. One I know from elementary school.

Chanyeol makes a new friend every week, sometimes even more. Buys them drinks at expensive bars-because he can afford it-and in a month he has totally forgotten that they have ever existed. Some become panicked and call almost every day or message him so much that be blocks the number. I read a couple of the texts, and some make me laugh. Some don’t. I delete a part of them because he doesn’t care anyways and from time to time, I get jealous at how upfront they are. How bold.

“Sure. How many?”

“30 more?” Chanyeol says.

He pushes me on the bed, hovers over my body and kisses me.

30.

Exactly double of what we have decided upon.

“Isn’t that…too much?”

“Some have 1000 guests. 60 isn’t such a stretch. It still counts as a small wedding.”

Not even the sex makes me feel better.

When I wake up in the morning, my throat is sore and I have a headache. A lovely once in a blue moon headache that doesn’t go away with just a pill. Or two. Or three. Then it’s an overdose and my headache is still not a migraine, it stares down from a tall cliff at the grey waters underneath. But doesn’t jump into it. Too much of a coward, so I stay near that edge too, with the yellow bottle of painkillers next to me, taking them from time to time.

At 3, I remember the letters. The headache has yet to leave my head, still claps its nails on the blackboard, dragging chalk from time to time on the edges.

Martha is in the kitchen. Cooking. Smells like lasagna sauce.

“Have you found a letter this morning? In front of the door?”

The light is too bright.

“No, mister Baekhyun.” she says.

Now she’s a liar too, so I go check for myself. I open the door but there’s nothing. Not in the perfect bushes or the grass or anywhere. Martha must have taken it. Part of me wants to return to the kitchen but I know I shouldn’t. What will she think afterwards? Maybe she wrote the first two. Afraid that Chanyeol is getting married and then she will be replaced by me. Martha must secure her place somehow.

I forgot today his friends must come. The mirror in the hallway shows my reflection. No one can see me likes this, not when my eyes are deep in the hollows of my skull, purple all around and my skin is pasty and splotchy with redness.

Not his friends, friends that will judge me afterwards with him, ask Chanyeol if I finally had found one damn job. Then they will offer to find me one at one of their friend’s companies.

The door opens. I pull the covers over my eyes and face.

“Baek?”

“What?”

“Are you alright?”

The never ending questions: “are you good?”, “are you fine?”, “why are you upset?”

“Why?”

The bed shifts underneath his weight and one hand covers my shoulder. My head pounds, like there’s a secondary heart caught in my skull, attempting pointlessly to break the bones.

“Another migraine?”

“It’s…just a headache.”

“I can tell my friends not to come…” he says.

Chanyeol rubs his hand all over my arm, slowly, in circles with his thumbs; but the problem is that there’s no pain there and his touch makes everything worse.

“Don’t.”

My mouth is dry, throat sticking onto itself. When did I take the last pill? They say you should drink water, get some rest, not talk. Keep the blinds down.

“Baek…”

It is annoying. He is annoying, reminds me of the last days of my father being home, huddled with a blanket and a pillow at his chest, clawing at it with both hands, as my mother kept trying to make him stand up, eat. Do something else.

The next day, the ambulance came and took him away. Only years later, I found out he was institutionalized in a mental health clinic. Am I turning into him?! His headaches were just as bad, making him yell and hit everything. Hit me, hit mom, hit my brother.

Hitting was his method of blowing some steam, making the rest suffer with him too. One time, I went to school with a black eye and everyone kept staring at it, even teachers. But nobody asked, no one offered to help, to know what happened. I wouldn’t have told them anything, anyways. Back then I wanted to slice his throat open and see all the blood rush out on my hands.

“I. Need. To. Sleep.”

“Maybe…some water or-“

“Get the fuck out of here!”

I shouldn’t have yelled. Shouldn’t. Chanyeol doesn’t know about any of that.

“I…didn’t mean it.”

In the morning, there’s only a dull ache left in my brain. The rest of the headache fell from the cliff and broke into a rock.

5:55.

Chanyeol hasn’t woken up just yet, I can feel his body next to mine, an arm around my torso. I breathe out.

“Is it 6 already?” he asks.

I hum.

“Feeling better?”

“I’m sorry. About yesterday.”

Maybe I should tell him everything about my parents. But after 3 years, it seems too late, too cowardly.

“I know. It’s not your fault, I should have backed down.” Chanyeol says, kisses me on the cheek and I can feel his eyelashes brush over my skin.

We intertwine our fingers and sigh. The wedding is so close.

Then I remember the letters. Those damned letters.

Chanyeol kisses my cheek one last time and stands up from the bed.

“Can’t you stay…a bit longer?”

I stretch my body and yawn, pull the covers away and stand up. The room starts spinning, slower and faster, then slower again and I wrap both arms around him. Place my head on his chest.

“Tomorrow? It’s Saturday and…”

“Alright…go do your job.” I say.

Chanyeol likes having a schedule, a tight one that he obeys to the marrow of the bones; I found out about that on our second week of dating.

We walk to the kitchen together, but first, I open the entrance door. No letter. Not a single scrap of paper. I close it. Maybe Martha is watching, maybe the letter is placed after a certain hour, closer to 9. So I should wait, and that is what I do, after Chanyeol leaves for work at 7 sharp; the house is empty, Martha is back in the service bathroom and I can open the front door as much as I please, look to the right and left and then close it.

No letter.

It is well past 10 when I decide to stop. I haven’t gone back to bed but I feel drenched, like I’ve been squeezed by a machine until only the peeling skin has remained. The day unfolds long ahead of me, with nothing to do. In the past I would jump in bliss, thinking that I could cram a couple more lines onto a Word document.

But now the day only is long and there’s no letter.

I try to make no sound in the bedroom as I think that Martha is watching me closer since the other day. Maybe I should find a job. My brain has turned to puss, marched upon by headache that won’t end.

A job sounds decent; white shirt and some blue pants with brown shoes, smelling of detergent and cologne. I call a friend. He doesn’t pick up from the first call but second. Dry, cracking voice. Tired or hangover.

“Yeah, Byun. Thought about that offer?” he asks.

“I had.”

“Good. Tomorrow morning you’ll be at the mall, making ramen noodles, buddy. Luck.”

Actually, he is not my friend. Sometimes I do like to consider him that, but then I remember that we only talk when I need something, when he needs something. I need a job. He needs a person to keep talking and talking and talking to about his problems. And there are a lot of them, for someone like him.

Jongdae is small and thin. Thin and small, like a toy with a key that you only have to twist once and it’ll start jumping around on and on and on. He owns a little fast-food shop right in the food court of the mall, selling ramen noodles and other types of noodles. He hates it. Told me that on numerous occasions over a can of beer. Ungrateful, I think of him sometimes. A little annoying little dude that doesn’t have headaches that turn his brain into mush. He doesn’t have a failed unknown career.

So he is not my friend, you see. You don’t despise your friends, or do you? Is there any rule in any book about what friendship really is? Using each other until one gets sick of the other’s bullshit?

I can’t just stay at home any longer or ask Chanyeol for help. Jongdae doesn’t judge. That’s what I know. And I’d rather work at a ramen shop than for one of those blue suited pricks. I won’t even have to buy a shirt for this. Who cares about those people in the back of a shop, opening countless bags of frozen noodles and frozen sauces and frozen meat that they fry over the stove?

I don’t.

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually kind of dig where this is all going.   
> hope you'll enjoy:)

I found another letter this morning. Saturday morning. One day that I was supposed to spend with Chanyeol, but instead, with that damned letter in my pocket, still unopened, I am on my way to work.

What a word!

Work.

Is this a joke?! It has to be, or else I wouldn’t be hired at my own accord in a ramen shop, right in the back, having my hair smell like onions and cooked meat.

Out of the array of terrible jobs in my repertoire, the worst has been the supermarket one. Next on the list is the squirrel mascot, all throughout my first year of college. At least those people couldn’t see my face from behind the oversized furry costume. They wouldn’t have liked it, as I didn’t, taking the mask off in front of a mirror; red, blotchy, angry.

For them, I was nothing more than an entity, the mechanics behind that enormous, yellow squirrel that smelled like sweat and chips. I could have smashed their skulls or squeezed them to death and nobody would have known it was me. Or would they have?

But now I am on my way to work, to work for Jongdae who I have known since high-school.

The mall is crowded. All those bright lighted shops smelling like leather and perfume, filled with people, all taking clothes from the racks and putting them wherever.

The food court: even more crowded, at 10 in the morning. People with small children gathered around green, plastic tables eating fries with ketchup and some meat. Noisy people, laughing, shouting, bumping into you and not apologizing. Expecting you to make way for them.

I am late. My alarm didn’t ring or I forgot to put it, so I had to call Jongdae. Beg him, apologize. Feel disgusted with myself the entire way until I changed in some white clothes, put the apron and the protective mask on.

“I won’t tolerate this behavior from now on, do you understand? Even though we are…friends.” Jongdae says with his arms crossed.

So he considers me his friend. How funny!

“I worked before, so you know.”

“I do. Why don’t you do something with that Literature diploma you have?”

The eternal question.

“Because…nobody hires a bachelor in freaking English Literature. It’s useless. I would need a Master’s and then a PHD for someone to take me seriously.”

I think I have been shouting or raising my voice because everyone around us is now staring at me. At my red face.

“Then do it. God knows that Chanyeol has the means to pay the tuition for you.”

“The unemployed living off the rich soon to be husband. Such a good soap-opera theme, don’t you think?”

“Whatever. Shift starts at 7, ends at 5. Don’t be late again, or I’ll cut that from your salary.” Jongdae says, maybe sighs and rolls his eyes.

“Fine.”

People have stopped staring at me, back to their work. I still feel warm.

“You’ll boil the noodles and take care of the meat. Kyungsoo there will teach you.” Jongdae says.

In a corner, after Jongdae points it out to me, there’s Kyungsoo, with some headphones on and a cellphone in his lap. He looks up at us and his lips turn into a thin line.

“I’m Baekhyun.” I shout over the general noise.

But Kyungsoo just raises his hand and lets it fall back on his leg while I stand in the middle of the room, watching Jongdae disappear through the door, out into the mall.

It’s going to be a long day.

“So…”

He looks up at me again.

“The noodles are over there.”

“There?”

“In the fridge.”

“Oh…”

I hate it.

Hated it.

The way back home I smelled like cooked meat and sauces, everything stuck in my hair. Even my hands smelled terrible.

Then, on the last step of our front door, I remember the letter, waiting in my pocket to be opened. There’s nobody around and all the windows the house are dark, even though outside, the sun is beginning to set behind the foliage of the trees. I sit down. It’s cold but the moment my fingers touch the paper, a flash of warmth rushes through my body, from the nape of my neck, stopping right above my boxer briefs.

More words. Many more words, in the same swirly, wiggly handwriting, like the noodles I had to cook today.

_“DON’T MARRY HIM! He will lie, he will cheat, do anything for his own benefit. If you don’t believe me, then follow him when he doesn’t know.”-from a well-meaning person._

I crumple the paper again. What a load of bullshit! My first instinct is to throw it away-wherever-but I don’t. Martha or even Chanyeol could find it, read it, blame and question me about what this is all about.

Why would I care about an anonymous letter sent by some senile person? Maybe I’m not even the recipient, but someone else! This makes me laugh. My stomach starts growling and that’s when I realize that I haven’t eaten anything all day. At some point I saw Kyungsoo leave the back of the shop and return 20 something minutes later, while I was still cooking that damn meat.

The first batch was slightly burnt as the second slightly overcooked. With that came the first 2 complaints of the day, told to me by Kyungsoo in what I would later call his ‘displeased with me’ voice. Jongdae’s evil spawn. Only that he is even less understanding.

I am hungry and Kyungsoo is an utter jerk!

My mother used to say that I was always acting like a spoilt child on purpose, refusing to take any responsibility for anything that I did wrong in my life; and I always managed to do something wrong. Usually, I begged to differ, but nobody paid attention to that. From time to time I would receive one calculated slap from my father, when he could remember who I was; something to teach me how to behave better.

At school, no one would ask me why my cheek had a tinge of purple. I wouldn’t say anything about that either. Why bother when nobody cares?

I am mommy’s boy, as he would say. As my brother would say too.

I laugh again. But not because of the letter, but because of the irony that somehow I ended up better than he had ever thought. Just like that, with a little bit of luck on my side.

The door opens.

“Baek…what are you doing outside?”

I put the letter back in my pocket; it bulges out so I cover it with my hand.

“Nothing…my day has been…”

“Martha made some pasta and soup.” he says and for the first time, I am thankful for her.

“I haven’t eaten all damn day.”

I kiss Chanyeol on the lips as I stand up, grabbing him by the edge of his shirt to bring him closer.

“I love you…”

“Me too.” he laughs, biting down onto my lower lip. “Now you aren’t hungry anymore?” he winks.

“Maybe for something else.”

We both burst into laughter and my stomach grumbles once more.

“Come on. Let’s go eat.”

The rest of the day passes, still having the letter in my pocket. That someone must be surely sending it to the wrong person. It must. Our relationship is good, is perfect, like anything in our lives.

Chanyeol would never do any of that. Lying in bed, next to him, I listen to his breathing; turning slower and slower until it’s barely audible even though the room is quiet. Dark too, with the blinds down and curtains covering the windows. I can’t see a thing.

The letter is still in my pocket- I forgot about it somehow. Tomorrow there’s work too. Sunday. Who would have thought?

My alarm wakes me up like cold water thrown over my face.

05:45.

The phone falls down on the floor as Chanyeol mumbles something next to me. On Sundays, he wakes up whenever he wants.

When I get outside, on my tiptoes, not trying to wake Martha up, there’s no envelope in front of the house. It’s dark and quiet. No cars, no people. Just me, glancing around, with only the fog dangling between my calves like a small puppy.

The walk to the bus stop is tiring- I don’t have a license, and even though I could get a cab, I don’t want to be that person. So I walk and walk until the street lamp and the wooden bench appear. There’s headlights. My bus.

It is a 45 minute ride to the mall, but usually, it takes more than that. Traffic jams, accidents, the bus being late. Me being late, so it goes without me and in the end I have to walk another 5 stops to catch a different one.

But this time, I arrive there before everyone else. Almost.

“Morning…”

There’s only Kyungsoo inside, with his headphones on, reading a book. He doesn’t even see me, so I stop in front of him and wave a hand before his eyes. _Childish_. Who cares?

Kyungsoo takes an earphone out and looks up at me with his big, weirdly too big for his face eyes, and too big lips and nods.

Just nods and then the earphone is back on and I’m standing in front of him just like that. Afterwards, the place gets crowded and I’m back cooking noodles and meat while Kyungsoo barks orders at me like he is the boss. Not Jongdae.

“You are too slow.” he says at one point and I truly want to cuss at him and maybe throw the entirety of those damn noodles all over him.

But I don’t, just nod and try to be faster even though I’m not sure how I am supposed to do that.

My shifts ends at 5. It is 4:45 and my legs don’t hold me anymore. Not even my nose, filled with that foul smell. How do these people do it every single day and not complain or resign?

If I weren’t this desperate, I would simply walk out of the door and maybe finally throw some hot food in his face.

“You’re done.” he says.

“What?”

“It’s 5:05. Your shift is over.”

“Oh.”

“Yours?”

I’m not sure why I’ve asked. To be friendly? Why would I give a damn to someone who doesn’t give a damn?!

He nods. “Wanna grab a beer or something?”

That was unexpected. I look around, thinking that maybe he talked to somebody else, because that wouldn’t be the first time. But he didn’t. We’re the only ones.

“Sure.”

He just turns around and I assume he goes inside the changing rooms. I follow him and for some reason, my heart is beating a little bit faster.

“So…where do we go for…drinks?”

“Wherever.”

Kyungsoo takes his shirt off, that pukey yellow colored one that we all wear with an apron on top of it, covered in grease stains and smelling of rancid oil. We all smell like everything you could think about at the end of a day. There is no use in perfuming yourself before coming to this job. It makes me laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.”

I look elsewhere. Somehow, seeing someone naked right in front of me makes me become warmer, from the tips of my ears to my neck. I don’t want to change my clothes in front of him.

“Won’t you get dressed?” Kyungsoo asks.

“Uhm…”

“Do you need me to leave?”

He said in that tone-his judging tone that in two days became extremely familiar to my ears. It meant that I am no good, I cannot do one thing right. Not even change in a damn room.

“Please.”

I choose to ignore it and pretend that he really meant it.

“Fine. Be out in 5.”

That suddenly reminds of my father, of the way he used to boss my mother around before the incidents, all those sad incidents that made her feel empathetic of him and his suffering. I could never understand how people could be so forgiving. The last 3 years, she kept acting like his behavior was rational and only a petty consequence of his illness. But that had been him all along, now having the disease as a veil that could explain everything.

I am out in 7.

“What took you so long? Put pansies in your hair or what?” he asks.

Jerk.

“Yeah. Want one?”

“I want a beer. Come on.”

Frankly, I don’t know why he wants to spend more time with me or why I want to spend more time with him? Is this a way of punishing myself for abandoning my dear father for so long? So he returns as the embodiment of a younger prick?

“That bar looks fine.” Kyungsoo says and I nod.

I know no bars. Never have. So I just pretend that I am aware of what he is talking about. We get inside, and it’s crowded. Sunday afternoon. Then I remember that I forgot to call Chanyeol, ask about his day. But inside it’s too noisy.

“I need to make a phone call.”

“Sure. I’ll order for you too.”

“Sure.”

Outside, the air is cleaner, breathable. Doesn’t smell of sweat and booze and too strong perfumes.

“Babe…”

“You out from work?”

“Yeah…I’m just with some colleagues for a drink. It won’t be long though.”

My fingers are sweating on the phone. It almost slides from my grasp.

“Sure. I have some friends over…you might see them when you come back.”

“Yeah…I love you.”

“I love you more.”

We’ve never been the type of people to spend hours and hours on the phone, talking and talking about random bullshit. Heck, our conversations are even awkward from time to time. Chanyeol prefers text, I prefer nothing.

I get back inside. Kyungsoo is at a table, with two pints of beer in front of him; both full to the brim.

“Got that call?” he asks.

I am not sure whether or not he is sarcastic with me.

“Yeah…you could have started drinking.”

“No fun in doing it alone.”

“Then cheers.”

I pick the pint-which is surprisingly heavy-and raise it next to his. The glass clinks, and the liquid jumps inside, tracing the edges of its containment, dripping a little bit on the sides. I lick them-old habit, from my mother, as I would have always stained the tablecloth from my carelessness.

“Cheers.” Kyungsoo smiles.

“So…”

The beer tastes good.

“So…How do you know Jongdae?” he asks.

“Friends from high-school.”

“That explains why he gave you the job, babying you around.” Kyungsoo laughs.

“It’s not-“

“Don’t deny it. You actually like being babied.”

“Why would you actually think that?”

Kyungsoo is far away from babying me. No one in my life has ever babied me, not even my mother. The farthest from this has been my dear father. Only my brother would sometimes have done the hardest chores for me, but in exchange for something. Chanyeol treats me like an adult-or that’s what we both like to think. That I am actually capable of something, not just a soft body to fuck at night.

“Because…you were late by 3 hours the first day. And generally…it’s only a theory.” Kyungsoo says.

He takes another big gulp from the beer and I do it too. I remember that this morning there was no letter. Someone really likes to play with my nerves, it seems like. One day yes, one day no. Like it wants to test my patience or see how gullible I can be-how fast my soon to be marriage could crumble just from some useless letters on our doorstep.

“It’s a theory that you need to test more, then. You’ve only known me for 3 days. There’s so much you can learn about a person.”

That answer makes me feel smart. Maybe, once, I managed to shut his mouth.

“Alright…let me see. You take the bus which probably means that you have no license.”

I nod.

“You can’t lift anything heavier than 2 kilograms without someone’s help. Never done any physical work in your life. You hate me because I boss you around which means that there was someone in your life that used to do that too, ooor…you simply have a complex and you just don’t like people bossing you. How much of this is true?” he asks, raises and eyebrow and I feel defeated.

Amazed, but defeated. Who would have thought that the John Doe or Do Kyungsoo from behind a ramen shop in the mall would outsmart me, the one with a bachelor degree?!

“It’s because of my father.”

“The bossing around?”

“He has Alzheimer but before that, he was just an asshole without it. I…”

“Alright.” he nods, takes another sip, I do too-my throat feels dry and cracking.

I haven’t told anyone anything about my parents. Not recently-such as last 10 years. Not to Chanyeol.

“Now is he in a clinic or something?”

“For 12 years. Haven’t seen him ever since they took him from home.”

“That’s…” he says and looks down.

It’s quiet between us but the place is noisy, so somehow it balances out.

“I would have done the same.” Kyungsoo says.

“If you pity me now and being nice just because you think that I-“

“Don’t worry. I don’t.” he laughs. “My mom…she had a stroke a while back…” Kyungsoo says, plays with the half empty pint. “And she didn’t die but she…isn’t the same anymore. A little bit more than just a vegetable.”

“Oh.”

In all honesty, I didn’t expect that. Almost strangers are not supposed to share their secrets and worries that they so hard try to shove away; or maybe they are. There is a high probability that you would never see them again, that they don’t know enough about you and whoever you have in your life to start gossiping around. Why would they? They are close to a shrink, but without the diploma.

I wonder why I really haven’t said any of this to Chanyeol. But it’s a pointless question, because I have always known the answer, from the first moment I saw him. That seems like a stretch, but Chanyeol made me want to paint my life in a better color, not grey with splotches of red. I wanted to be someone else, with a better past for him.

“It’s fine. I don’t want or expect you to pity me either.” he says after a while.

I look down at my pint; it’s almost empty and I don’t recall drinking it all.

“I don’t think I care enough about you to...feel sorry.”

Kyungsoo laughs, glancing another way. But his cheeks round up and his mouth takes the shape of a heart.

“Are you single?”

Why would he ask that?

“Yes.”

Why would I say that?

“Me too. Truthfully, I’ve never got a knack for relationships. For making someone fall in love with me or…me to fall I love with them.”

Why did I lie to him? It would have been so simple, to say the truth, that in 3 months I’m getting married to the love of my life, in the back of our house, having 60 guests and a chocolate cake and casual outfits because I hate shirts and suits?

“I…”

“It’s fine.” he says. “It has gotten quite late, hasn’t it?”

7:00.

Sharp.

Chanyeol is waiting for me. Home, on a Sunday afternoon, almost night.

“Yeah…”

But none of us makes a move to stand up.

“I…should catch the 7:15 bus if I want to get home tonight.”

“Alright. I’ll just…pay at the bar.” Kyungsoo says.

 _Awkward_. That’s what my brain keeps saying as I put the coat on me and I watch him disappear into the crowd. I could leave just like that, but I don’t. Somehow, I care about what this almost stranger thinks of me.

“How much should I…”

“It is on me.” he says, no, smiles.

I hate myself for smiling back. Surely, it is not what I think it is. Just two coworkers getting a drink after work. Nothing unusual. But then, I remember the letters, whatever it was written on them. _“He would lie, he would cheat…”_

Maybe they weren’t about Chanyeol.  Maybe, all along, they were about me and I wasn’t supposed to be the one to find them.

I shudder.

That’s utter bullshit.

“Are you alright?” Kyungsoo asks.

“I need to catch the bus.”

“Right.”

_Awkward, awkward, awkward._

My father’s words come back to mind. _Stupid, stupid, stupid idiots who cannot do anything right._

I shouldn’t have talked about him because now he’s all in my brain, infesting it like a pest that grows deeper and deeper into my skull until I would need to crack it open and rip it off my own hands.

_Cunt._

_Liar. You are all some shitting liars, do you hear me?!_

Those were his last words before he fell down and my mother put him in bed and then called the ambulance.

“Baekhyun…” he says and touches my arm.

I flinch away.

“Sorry. But I really need to catch the bus. Thank you for the beer.”

There’s no bus at 7:15. So I just walk, walk and walk until I cannot see the bar. Then I call a cab. It comes quickly and I’m glad.

I don’t make a sound until I get home and sit on the bed. Where is Chanyeol?

The door creaks.

“How was out with your coworkers.” he asks, smiling widely.

“Great. Drank some beer at the bar.”

Chanyeol sits down next to me.

“You really needed to get out of the house. Really.” he says, brushes my bangs away.

His skin is warm, almost hot, smelling of peppermint and musk. It radiates so much warmth. He must have taken a shower. I lean over, until my head is on his shoulder. It’s safe. I love him.

“I…would you still love me even if I weren’t the way you think I am?”

“What do you mean?”

He laughs.

“If…maybe…would you? I know that generally…this is not unconditional love, it is conditioned by so many damn factors.”

“Baek…”

He looks at me, touches the side of my face.

“I love you.”

That’s not what I wanted to hear now that I am certain that the letters were in fact about me. Chanyeol is Chanyeol. He is like this neighborhood. Perfect.

I am not.

“I love you too.”

I do. I really do. I must. But I need to resign, from my job.

“I…I want to resign from my noodle job.”

That’s how I’ve been calling it.

“Alright. It’s not like we cannot manage without it. Maybe you can find a place to teach and do your Master’s at the same time.” Chanyeol says.

I know that’s what he has always wished.

“Alright.”

If that’s what I need to do to keep him close, stop those letters from coming. Has he read any of them?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay, i have managed to finally finish this. i'm not sure why this chapter made me feel so emotional, but i'm quite okay with the way i ended it.  
> hope you'll enjoy:)

I am a decent human being.

I’ve let one of Chanyeol’s friends find me a teaching job in a high-school close to home, while during the afternoons I would do a Master’s program.

My schedule is packed.

Teaching is not for me, I’ve realized that after the first class I had with some 11th graders; noisy, hormonal, texting away on their phones, their hands always underneath the desks, not listening to anything that I was saying to them.

I don’t know what type of teacher I want to be: the strict or the lenient one, the funny guy who cracks jokes or the serious yet lovable 30 year old? Almost 30. Not yet.

Who do I want to be?

I am none, as I could tell. Not funny or boring or strict enough. Something gravitating in the middle of all those terms, like a meteorite spinning around a planet, getting smaller and smaller until only the debris remains of it.

The Master’s program is fine. Just fine. Another friend of Chanyeol’s helped me. Suggested a couple of majors. I picked the fanciest sounding one, all to make him happy, to stop those damn letters from coming.

At one point, they actually did. Just like that, or Chanyeol or Martha have started taking them before me. The rest I didn’t even read, just threw them in the garbage, unopened.

I haven’t heard from Kyungsoo afterwards. Jongdae received my resignation on the phone but I think he figured it out from the beginning.

One day, on my way back from school, I saw him. Like anything utterly strange that happens in life, I didn’t expect it. Not one bit. It’s been 2 months, one left until the wedding. I just stopped and looked at him, on the other side of the street, staring at the windows of an antique store, with tomes of books displayed on some shelves, between plastic flowers and nick-knacks.

Do Kyungsoo.

Why would I feel this pang of sadness and nostalgia in my chest for someone I have barely known, for someone I have talked with in total 4 hours, considering his shouted orders at the ramen shop?

But I still do, and it’s horrible and uncomfortable; I feel wet on the inside once again, wet and cold and freezing. The image of my father appears, back when I used to love, respect him; when he seemed to be different, not a carcass hosting inside a shadow, not a man.

Kyungsoo turns around and sees me. We look at each other but I need to go. I will be late for classes. Just walk, walk, faster and faster until I think I am at a safe distance.

Then I stop and look behind.

People, rows of people, walking towards me. No him. I breathe, out; freezing but I don’t know why.

The wedding is in exactly one month, one, I’ll be married to the love of my life, to the only person I want to see until the rest of my days.

Someone grabs my arm.

I flinch.

“It’s me. Just me. It’s me.” he says; sounds familiar, his voice, like I’ve heard it over and over for years.

“You…”

I feel wet and freezing on the inside and I can just imagine another letter coming, as what I do and think right now is wrong.

“I’ll be late for classes.”

But he doesn’t let go of my arm, keeps holding it, slides it down until our fingers touch. It’s warm.

“You’ve resigned from your job.”

Just an observation. Nothing more.

“I did.”

His fingers fiddle with mine, maybe he feels as unsure as I do. Finally, he lets go, his arm falls down, next to his body. People must be looking at us, but the only thing that I keep thinking about is that I want him to keep holding my hand. Only that.

As I grew up, nobody really did that and Chanyeol is against any sort of affection in public.

Kyungsoo laughs.

“I actually hoped that you would call or something. I…” he shakes his head and I can see once again how heart shaped his lips really are. “I slipped a napkin with my number in your pocket. For…you to call me.”

Oh.

I must have thrown it away with the letter, not even bothering to check for something else.

“I…I must have thrown it away.”

“It’s alright. Jongdae…he told me you are getting married…”

Is that a question? Of course it is. I lied to him.

“In a month.”

“Congratulations.”

This time, he doesn’t smile and I am sure that it is all fake, and he is so far away from feeling happy for me, that I am doing something like that. How must it look to him! That I am only marrying someone for money, for security, no love involved, at least not on my part.

But that is not true. My relationship with Chanyeol is perfect. We both love, both care for each other and I wouldn’t want anything else than that.

“Thank you.”

He licks his lip, bites it and I stare. I know it.

“Well, then…happy wedding day, I suppose. I am not particularly good with this either. People and all.” he says.

I am not either.

“Thanks…if you want…you could…”

Why would I say it?

“Come to the wedding. Give you an extra invite. Maybe if you want to bring someone with you.”

“I have no one to bring with me. But thanks, I’ll think about it.” Kyungsoo says and I am well aware of what that means.

_‘I won’t come but I cannot tell you to your face.’_

“You remind me of my father.”

The words come out fast, in a blubber. Only when they’re out I’m scared of what he might think, say. But it’s quiet and maybe he will never say anything.

“Is it good or bad?”

I shrug. Both?

“I wish I wouldn’t but then I suppose there will be nothing between…” but he doesn’t finish the phrase, coughs and shakes his head.

 _There will be nothing between us_. Because then I wouldn’t feel this way. Or maybe not?

“But I’m not your father. Hopefully I’m someone who can make the right choice.” he smiles.

I know it sounds dramatic as it really is actually, but I try to keep that as the last thing I remember of him: the heart his lips make when he smiles. Sometimes, I get this sentimental over almost strangers; ones that remind me of my father it seems like.

And he does. Somehow.

The wedding is in one month. Still too much to do even though it’s only in our back garden. Who would have thought? Chanyeol is panicked, I can tell it. He wakes even earlier and no matter how much I try to make him stay more in bed with me, he doesn’t. Even his phone calls are getting longer. But I am not stressed. Not like that.

I could be, but not when I see the wedding as a dreadful big monster ready to swallow me whole and maybe, at some point, regurgitate my damp and stinking body on a patch of grass. Never the same again.

Marriage scares me. Luckily, I have no married friends and the only conjugal relationship I have watched progress and crumble before my eyes was the one of my parents. Funnily, the first I will attend will be mine.

So I am shitting my pants in a way even though on the surface I don’t care.

Chanyeol shouldn’t know all of that because I don’t want to put even more pressure on his shoulders. And now that the freaking damn letters have stopped coming, I intend to have things go just the same way.

One thing disrupted all of this calmness. Meeting Kyungsoo. But that was just a one-time thing, unplanned, out of the blue. It shouldn’t matter.

Why would it?

We don’t need to buy fancy suits or fancy flowers, because this a casual wedding, held between close friends. The paper work will be done in the morning, at the city hall, and the rest, in the nice breezy afternoon of the beginning of May.

“Have you eaten today?”

It’s morning, too early, 6 sharp. The sun is not even up the sky, so the kitchen is artificially lighted.  Chanyeol’s skin looks a little too pale.

“I’m not hungry.”

He shakes his head and I place a hand on his back. We haven’t had sex in a while and I know it’s all from the stress and being too tired to do anything except sleep but it still scares me. That he might somehow be avoiding me.

“Babe…you should still eat something. It’s not…healthy.”

“I know.” Chanyeol smiles, looks down at my face and kisses me on the cheek.

I whisper in his ear: “I love you to the moon and back.”

That has become my thing. Ours.

He laughs. I’m glad. We’re alright. Our relationship is perfect.

“If there’s anything troubling you…you can tell me.”

“I know. But it’s alright. Just a little stressed.”

“I know.”

School is boring. Terrible. Horrible. I have enough classes to teach so that I can never remember any kid’s name right, which in return gratifies me with laughter from everyone. I might as well be the forgetful teacher that everybody makes fun of. Every night, I stay in bed and prepare the materials for the next day; all that I need to say to those little spoilt pricks that don’t listen anyways. There’s a weekly test, every Thursday- that they all hate, but gives me one damn quiet half an hour-tests that take me the entire weekend to score. Then there’s some presentations and the homework verification and somehow no parent has yet to come and complain that I am a terrible excuse of a teacher.

The Master’s is going well too. I hate every minute of it but I do it because it makes Chanyeol happy listening to everything I have to say about my entire ‘oh so busy and interesting day that I don’t spend locked inside the house anymore’.

That’s how my life is going to be like in the next 20 years if I keep trying to make Chanyeol happy and proud, proud and happy of me, his dear husband, who in the next maybe 6 years will also have a PHD and with the help of some other friends of his I will teach in a university. An upgrade from hormonal teenagers to hormonal tweens.

My life will soon be truly perfect. Maybe, with the help of that soon PHD I’ll be able to publish another book with my real name on the cover, bought in more than 100 copies. A book taught in schools. A book that I’ll hate too but maybe people won’t.

Sometimes I like to imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t met Chanyeol that day. Or if I had told him everything about my life, all those miserable moments in my past. Maybe then he wouldn’t be waiting for me on the aisle, ready to marry me.

The day of the wedding is beautiful. Truly, utterly beautiful. No clouds on the sky, the sun gleaming brightly and the forest looking like on in a Jane Austen novel. Pity I’m not wearing a Victorian dress. Not even a suit.

Last month has passed so quickly and ordinarily that I won’t even mentioning anything from it. Each day looked the same, our lives gravitating around the wedding preparations.

60 guests in our garden, sitting on chic white chairs on each side of the winding path that leads to the flower arcade. Where we are about to say our vows. It took me 2 weeks to write mine and I am not sure about Chanyeol.

Everything looks perfect, just as we wanted it.

People are smiling, looking at how happy we are. His parents with his sister are in the first row, and mine metaphorically dead. My brother somewhere in Europe. Maybe I would have liked to see him here, hugging me, shaking my hand.

I bite my lip. I wish my mother were here too. Maybe even my father, just to throw it all in his fucking face that I am not useless. That I have managed to make a life of my own. But he ruined all of that when one day-why am I telling this exactly right now?-he broke out of the clinic, rushed to our house, our dear small house that we were about to move out of because we couldn’t afford it anymore, and killed my dear mother.

Just like that. Right before my eyes, with a kitchen knife, slit her throat and then started whaling, whaling and screaming until a neighbor came and called the ambulance. I didn’t cry that day or any other. The doctors said it was because of the trauma. They didn’t throw him in prison. Kept him in a psychiatric ward.

I breathe out. Chanyeol is right before of me, the man I am about to marry, the exact opposite of my father. Sometimes, I want to know what goes through his head, what he thinks in this exact moment about me.

But I can’t.

I stop in front of him and I smile; widely and brightly and then glance over the 60 guests in front of us.

My eyes stop on him. On Kyungsoo. He wasn’t supposed to come. That was only a sham invitation, a cover. But he came, standing in the second row, next to Jongdae. His eyes meet mine and I know he knows.

I gulp down. Chanyeol intertwines his fingers with mine and I can hear my father whaling in my mind, louder and louder.

The paper work is already signed, so why do I care so much about some vows and rings? Chanyeol is first, says his, looks me in the eyes while he holds my hand and I really try to pay attention and focus, and remember everything that he says but I cannot. From time to time, I look at Kyungsoo.

It’s my turn. I know because it is all quiet and people are now staring at me.

“I…I’m not that good with words for an English Graduate.” Pause. They laugh. I breathe out. “I am no good and probably I won’t be good enough either to express my true feelings for the love of my life.” Another pause. But people don’t laugh, which is good. “Those are some big words, aren’t they?” Pause. “Truly, they are, and sometimes, I don’t exactly understand their meaning. After all, we are just humans, imperfect. I…” I look at him and squeeze his hand tighter. “I met you one day in my life when I thought that I was the unluckiest human being on Planet Earth.” One day that I wanted to take my life, slicing my veins with a knife. But I don’t say that. “But then, suddenly, I wasn’t. Because you’ve made me realize that life is worth living, that life, my life is worth living next to you, side by side with the only person that utterly understands me-“ I glance to the side, at Kyungsoo, and then quickly at Chanyeol who squeezes my hand-“with the one person who managed to make me be better. Chanyeol.” Pause. “I wish to spend an eternity with you but I know that it is not possible. So then…I wish to spend a smaller one with you, the rest of our lives and be like those people from the Notebook and…I love you to the moon and back.”

The end was not on the paper. I don’t recall what I’ve actually written and I don’t remember what I’ve actually said. My throat hurts, I’m freezing, my soul feels damp.

The ring slides on my finger and stops. I stare at it. People cheer, clap, because it’s all happy for them.

“I love you.” Chanyeol says.

I am the happiest person in the whole universe.

I glance back and Kyungsoo is no longer sitting down.

“Can you…can you excuse me one moment?”

“Yeah, sure…”

I run, I’m not sure where or why, but I go back on the small path between the white chairs until I reach the cars. He is there, standing behind one.

“Kyungsoo…”

He looks at me.

“I didn’t think that you would come.”

“Me neither.”

What is more to say?

“Nice speech. Very emotional.”

“I…”

“You should go back to the party. Everyone is waiting for you.”

“Kyungsoo…I…”

“No need to explain yourself. I understand. Trust me. I really do.” he smiles and the whaling comes back, louder, louder and I want to fall down and cover my ears and close my eyes and cry.

“It’s going to be fine. Trust me.”

I shake my head. One whole eternity. Exactly like in my damn speech. The only part that I remember from it.

“You should tell him about everything at some point, you know? It will lift everything off your chest.” he says.

“What everything?”

“Your parents and what…you wanted to do before you met him. He should know.”

“I didn’t want to do anything.”

It’s not true and I don’t know why I am doing this to him, to me, why I really want to hurt both of us.

“You don’t know me so don’t pretend that-“

“I don’t know you but I know how it is to-“

“You don’t so just shut up and get the fuck out of my life. I don’t need a stranger to understand me! I don’t!”

I don’t know why I said what I said to him. Because I didn’t believe any of that and none of that made me feel remotely better. Only worse, so bad, that after he left without even looking back at me, I fell down, behind a big, white car, and started weeping for minutes without end until my eyes were burning.

The wedding is over and I am married. I have a job, I am pursuing a Master’s and afterwards a PHD. I even told Chanyeol one night about my dream of writing a book. He didn’t laugh in my face.

The letters have stopped coming and not until this day do I know who they were for or who sent them. But I don’t care.

My life is good.

My life is perfect, so is my marriage with the person I truly, utterly love.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> comments are well loved:)


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